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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214553">Aftermath</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual'>NervousAsexual</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2019 But It's Not 2019 Anymore [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Thief (Video Game Original Series), Thief (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Found Family, Gen, Prophecy, Seizures, The Metal Age spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:09:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the last confrontation at Soulforge, Garrett wants answers. Artemus finds himself at a loss--and finds he knows even less than he thought.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keeper Artemus &amp; Garrett (Thief)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2019 But It's Not 2019 Anymore [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>By the time Artemus comes to him the rust gas has settled and the mechanist temple is still. Garrett is sitting against the outside wall, his head tipped back and eyes closed, and for a single telling moment Artemus' heart skips a beat. But as he approaches Garrett tips his head toward him and stares at him quietly. He looks tired but uninjured.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>It is done, then. The Metal Age has finished.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>His eyes follow Artemus as he examines the door to the mechanist temple. In the gaping silence left by Karras' ruined constructs Artemus can hear the whir of the mechanical eye--the last remaining piece of a mad man's technology.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus opens the chapel doors and is met with silence and a shifting of ashes. With the rust gas settled knee-deep in places it looks almost like snow. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"All this." When he looks back Garrett is still leaning against the wall, sifting the rust ash through his fingers. "It was written?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus nods.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Vikt..." The name cuts off sharply. Garrett frowns and touches his throat. "Viktoria's death? Karras? All written in your books?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The unasked question saddens Artemus. He knows what Garrett wants--the same thing he has always wanted--and it is not his to give. "All is..." How much to tell? How much to hide? "...as it was written."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And there's more?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>An image flits through his head of a chamber of scribes, heads bowed over heavy tomes, the scratch of quills on paper, the faintly metallic scent of ink. "Yes."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The thief meets his gaze. His own eye is streaked with red. The mechanical eye remains unchanged.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He says, "Tell me."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>This is how it has always been. Garrett's talents and his nature are a paradox not even the keepers can unravel. For an hour or more at a stretch he can hide in the smallest of shadows, waiting for a single opening that lasts no more than a moment. Artemus has watched him move from the clock tower to Angel Watch, systematically clearing every apartment he passed of valuables. And yet he is impatient. When his keeper training didn't progress as quickly as he wished he abandoned it for thievery. Garrett's flippant remarks about the interpreter, his dismissal of the keepers' logic, had irritated Keeper Orland, but nothing he said surprised Artemus. Garrett never had the patience--instinctual or learned--for the intricacy and vaguery of the prophecies. He wants to read names, dates, explicit instructions on how to move forward.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He is not a keeper. He may have friends among them but he has no right to demand anything of them.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett watches him in silence.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I will tell you what I can. Walk with me."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus walks toward the wall that hides them from the city, but when he looks back Garrett has not moved.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I can talk just fine right here," he says.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>There is mistrust in his voice. Artemus suddenly feels so weary. It's true, then. What he had said to Garrett that night with Keeper Orland was only half false. There was still a hunger for knowledge, but the last of the sentiment Artemus has always used for currency with Garrett is gone. "The city watch will come."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"So talk fast."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>With a sigh he returns and crouches at some distance, knees groaning at the movement, and he pulls his cloak around him. "The prophecies speak of ages. The age of the trickster. The metal age."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And you came to me to end both of them."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>This is true. What remains unsaid is that without Garrett the trickster could never have retrieved the eye he used to usher in his age. The metal age would have come with or without the thief, but there is no denying the links connecting Garrett and Karras. "There is a third age before this is finished. The age of darkness."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett glances wryly into the dark night that surrounds them. He shrugs.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You've earned the City a reprieve. For how long I can't say. But there are prophecies. 'Beware the Age of Darkness. Light shall become shadow, time shall become the enemy, life shall become pain.'"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And that is different than every other age because...?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>There is so much to read into Garrett's words but Artemus ignores him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And these prophecies involve me."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>That is a question Artemus has asked himself so very many times. The prophesied traitor. The Brethren and Betrayer. He and Orland have bickered over the meaning. The traitor is Garrett; of this Orland is certain. He is a keeper who not only abandoned his life's work but who used what he learned for personal gain. Artemus is hesitant to agree. Orland is right in that some of his hesitation is the folly of sentiment, but the fact is that without Garrett to act for them the Keepers would only have watched as the City fell to the trickster or to Karras.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett rubs at his temples. His eyes are tightly closed.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"That much I cannot say."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Well," Garrett snaps, "is there anything you can say?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You are not a keeper. You have no place with us."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"That doesn't answer my question."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"No."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, Garrett scoffs. "I am sick to death of you keepers." He tips his head back against the cathedral. "I never asked for any of this."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Didn't he? All those years ago Artemus gave him a choice. He'd offered a place among the keepers and when Garrett rebuffed him he had walked away. It was Garrett who came running to him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>He was a child. He was a sick, starving child with no idea of the burden he was shouldering.</em>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"So this isn't finished." Garrett lets his hands fall to his lap. "Tomorrow there'll still be keepers following me. You will keep leaving me glyphs. You won't tell me what's going on but you will let me keep doing your work for you."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"It isn't our work you've done, Garrett."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Right, right. Keepers don't take action. They just watch and spout off cryptic nonsense and leave all the heavy lifting up to me."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus doesn't respond. Though he phrases his truth venomously Garrett is correct. He is the one taking agency. The keepers have only guided him, and even their guidance is more suggestive than directive.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"If you won't tell me what I need to know, will you at least tell me one thing?" Garrett rubs unconsciously at the dirt that stains his armguard. "The prophecies that have come true--the ones of the person who has to end the ages--was there any chance that it could have been somebody else?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You have all the attributes the prophecies mentioned."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"No." Garrett raises his head and looks Artemus straight in the eye. "Could it have been somebody else?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>What Artemus could tell him is this: in all this time, with all the keepers who have lived and trained and died for their cause, there has never been another like Garrett. Instead he says, "Nothing is ever set in stone." That is the answer Garrett is looking for, but Artemus doubts it is as satisfying as he'd hoped.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett lets his head tip back again. He looks up at the stars with bleary, unfocused eyes. Something about this is familiar. Artemus thinks of a small boy, a keeper in training, and how he would lose hours at a time. But that was so long ago. Garrett is not that boy any longer.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"The watch will be here shortly. It's time to leave."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett glances at him but doesn't move. Soon enough he's looking up at the sky again. Artemus moves closer and in the pale moonlight he sees the dirt smudged on one side of Garrett's armor, the earth disturbed beneath him.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Garrett."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I heard you the first time. Go, if you're going."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He makes no move to get up and Artemus grows only more concerned. "Can you walk?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>His response is a strained chuckle. "What kind of question is that?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You seized."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett turns his face away.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He may as well have answered directly. "I had thought..." Garrett had suffered convulsions a number of times during his keeper training, but that wasn't uncommon in children and the seizures had trailed off after he turned sixteen. "I thought you had outgrown this."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"It's not a big deal."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Do you know what caused it?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"What difference does it make?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus knows he wishes to be left alone. He still remembers the first few days after the trickster's death, watching Garrett fall apart in pain and humiliation. He sympathizes with that, he does--that is exactly what the keepers taught him to do, after all, to bury anything resembling emotion--but they can't stay here. "These things don't reappear from nowhere. We... you need to understand why it happened to prevent it from happening again. What if it had happened while you were inside the cathedral? What if you were out on one of your jobs?" Garrett laughs. There's no amusement in the laugh, and the hair on Artemus' neck stands up. "It has, hasn't it."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett shrugs one shoulder. He still doesn't look at Artemus.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"How many have you had since you left us?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett's lips move as if to speak.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Garrett?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Four?" His voice is soft. "Five?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus counts back the years since the keepers let him go. There is enough time that those seizures could be widely spaced, but the fact that he's had them is concern enough. "When?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett rubs at his head. "I don't know. It's not like I'm keeping track."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>All the years that the keepers have watched him and they had no idea. "Guess."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"First one was... before the trickster." That he answers at all is alarming--if he had the strength Artemus knows that Garrett would argue. "He was still Constantine."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>In the distance he can hear the city watch coming up. Artemus moves alongside Garrett and draws the dirt-stained arm across his shoulders. Garrett doesn't fight him as he helps him stand.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Thought it was the brandy. When he asked me to get the Eye. Gave me a glass. After I left I got the aura. Didn't even make it off the estate." With a bit of support he is able to get over the wall. "One in the maw. After. When I followed the pagan to Viktoria. One of her tree beasts got me good in the throat."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Could the maw be the connection? Or the wood nymph? She had been here in the cathedral and some part of her must have still remained.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"One after you told me to go to the Mechanists." Garrett stumbles alongside him, legs threatening to fold with every step. He is shaking against Artemus' shoulder. "Managed to get myself holed up in the old Hammer cemetery. Got done in time for some eavesdropping. Obviously."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He can imagine it--Garrett convulsing in the dark cemetery before dragging himself to Karras' doorstep and propping himself up against the door. His foolish heart aches. "And the fourth?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Without a word Garrett jerks his head back toward the cathedral.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"They're coming more frequently, then." Three in the last handful of months. For the entirety of his campaign with Viktoria he has been at risk. Artemus remembers how he moved over the rooftops on his way to Angel Watch, and the entire time he could have seized and fallen to the cobblestones below. Somehow he worked his way through the Eastport seminary in that state of weakness that follows seizures.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Garrett says nothing. He's staring at the ground before them, face expressionless. As dangerous as all of this has been, he doesn't seem up to discussing the matter.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You are staying in the south quarter, correct?" Garrett nods wearily against his shoulder. They both know it's a meaningless question--the keepers know everything about him. Everything except the seizures. "I will stay with you until you're home."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Don't."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Don't what? Stay with you?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Don't make this another one of your... 'fatherly' moments. We are not family. We tolerate each other. Barely."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And that is different than every other family because...?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>For a moment Garrett says nothing, and then, recognizing his own words slightly twisted, he gives a tired smirk.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I know that you have no fondness for us, but to the keepers you will always be the apprentice who left."<em> Our most promising acolyte.</em> Artemus still wonders how Garrett could never see the quiet pride the keepers had taken in his ability.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I... just take me home, keeper."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Artemus does.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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